


Alpha: He Said She Said

by agoodwoman



Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-16
Updated: 2015-12-04
Packaged: 2018-04-21 02:47:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,027
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4812050
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/agoodwoman/pseuds/agoodwoman
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Someone asked for a drabble on Scully's internal monologue of a gifset posted on tumblr, this was was my take on it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. He Said

As they walked inside Karen Berquist’s office and he startled her with is hands on her shoulders. She flinched visibly and he immediately regretted it. It made him sad to think he couldn’t touch her the way he had before. They hadn’t crossed the barrier from friends to lovers yet. It was definitely a thing that Mulder was sure it was a soon to be possibility instead of a chance probability.

He wanted to make a “being in the dog house” joke at the moment but perhaps he would save it for another time.

Mulder had been overly touchy with her since she got back from New York and survived the temporary partnership between her and Peyton Ritter. Overly as in more than he usually did, which for other agents, was also a lot. They survived a hurricane, got the X-Files back, they lived through a bank robbery and pretending to be married when she honestly couldn’t stand the sight of him. The last part was particularly rough.

No matter what happened, she still flinched when he touched her. She ran hot and cold with him, joking and flirting one moment but then seeming as though she needed a vacation from him and his theories after a day into the investigation. Mulder was definitely in the dog house.  _Bad dog_.

She looked at him enough like he was a dog she was forever trying to train. He didn’t chew the furniture but he had some other bad habits. The sunflower seeds everywhere, forgetting to take his shoes off when he laid on her couch, taking any food she had if she left it for longer than a few minutes but she was the one who drooled when she slept. He found that to be adorable but he was sure she wouldn’t say the same for his unkempt habits. He wishes she would. 

“Karen Berquist knows more about canine behaviors than anybody on the planet,” he said, trying to move past it and opening the blinds to allow light into the room.

The poster on her wall, Mulder was actually surprised at. He mentioned it once in passing during one of their recent exchanges but he didn’t anticipate she would order one for herself. He didn’t feel this way when the Lone Gunmen had things around their place that Mulder mentioned. Why did this feel different?

“Mulder?” Scully let out a breath. “She’s a friend of yours?”

“We met online,” he said with a nod.

“Online,” she repeated, unimpressed.

“Two professionals, exchanging information,” he told her.

Those were her words she used to describe the recent emails she traded with a fellow scientist in San Diego after their trip to Arcadia. He addressed her as Dana, she called him Tim and sometimes he called her before sending over image files. Mulder tried not to sulk when she laughed at one of his jokes so he usually left the room.

Just out of curiosity, Mulder did his due diligence and did some research on Scully’s online friend. He saw a picture of Tim Watts on the FBI employee database and saw that he was an accredited scientist, unarguably handsome and had all his hair. Mulder hated him.

He wondered why this part of their relationship had to be so difficult. Why they couldn’t move past whatever their hang up was and they could be partners like they were.

He knew. That whole mess outside his apartment, laying his heart out on the table and asking her to stay with him before the bee interrupted what might be the most anticipated kiss of their lives and then the cold bucket of water working under AD Kersh, losing the X-Files to Diana and Spender… They weren’t in a good place.

Scully wasn’t interested in this guy Tim, Mulder knew that. But every once in a while he was thinking she might hang up her FBI badge, go back to medicine and return to a life on the west coast with the rest of the Scully clan. Mulder was sure the only reason Maggie Scully stayed in the colonies was because she worried the most about her only daughter and the dangerous job she took on in 1992.

Later, in the car, Scully would remind Mulder of a constant argument between them. He shouldn’t underestimate a woman - not just Karen but Diana or anyone he chose to trust immediately without question. He seemed to have such faith in the fairer sex when he’d been burned so many times.

They could be tricksters too.

What was even worse to a degree was that Scully was right about Karen, the coincidence of the case was exactly what she wanted to get Mulder out there. Karen blatantly pointed out she hadn’t anticipated Mulder working along side a woman who looked like her though, with Scully’s feminine wiles.

“You watch, but you don’t see,” Karen said to her.

What a gross understatement.

She didn’t see Mulder’s longing looks to her, she didn’t see the touches and the glances that signaled to other people that Mulder and Scully belonged to one another. She didn’t see a lot of things when it came to Mulder. He tried to show her as much as he could.

Perhaps it would take a miracle. She believed in those. 


	2. She Said

It was seven o’clock on a Thursday night when she finished with the recent consult she had provided for Tim Watts in San Diego. He was an agent she had met recently during their case in Arcadia and Mulder had not made it a secret he could be thrilled less with the recent friendship. While she assured him it was nothing more than two professionals exchaging information, Mulder had reacted like her brother Bill had during high school when he would try to scare off boys from sniffing around his younger sister. For Mulder, he was more territorial and definitely as much of an ass.

 

Due to that conflict, she come to using one of the empty lab offices to call Tim back and discuss her findings. If she called from downstairs, Mulder would pretend not to eavesdrop, linger in her space and act petulantly jealous for the rest of the week. It would be also

 

It would be less annoying if he wasn’t also touching her constantly, calling her every night and looking at her like she was the last bag of seeds on the planet. Sometimes that made it worse because she wanted to finish him off like a pint of Ben and Jerry’s Double Fudge and other times she wanted to slap that wanton look office his face.

 

When she had asked him about the case she wasn’t trying to flirt, to respond to his flirting and jokes but being back down in the basement seemed to bring it out in her. Without the watchful eyes of the bullpen agents, she felt more like herself instead of the Dana Scully they were expecting her to act like. The Dana Scully that risked reprimand and censure to chase after Mulder on a ghost ship or run through the halls of the FBI looking for one shred of information.

 

“Are you sure this woman isn’t an authority on bats?” Scully commented at the low lighting in Karen’s Berquist’s office.

 

He startled her with his hands on her shoulders. She knew she flinched visibly and she immedately regretted it. Prior to this year, the touches soothed her and she looked forward to them. Unfortunately for her, she looked forward to them too much.

 

What she knew was inevitable was the crossover from friends to lovers would happen and if Mulder had his way, soon. It stopped being a fleeting thought when she saw the look of intent in his eyes and realized he wanted her for her. She wanted him too but she still felt so angry with him.

 

If he made a “in the dog house” joke as they stood inside Karen’s office she would put a collar and leash around his neck before smacking him on the nose with the newspaper. Granted, Scully knew better to hit a dog on the face but Mulder probably needed aversion therapy and extreme punishment. He was so damn stubborn. Maybe she could rub his face in his mistakes and tell him he was bad.

 

“Karen Berquist knows more about canine behaviourisms than anybody on the planet,” he said, obviously trying to move past the initial conversation. “She’s lived with wild canids and wolves in five different continents.”

 

“How is it you know so much about her but you don’t know what she looks like?” she asked. If he pulled out Karen’s senior thesis and quoted it to Scully she was going to leave.

 

“I’ve never actually met her,” Mulder stated as he walked across the office to continue to look at the photos on the walls.

 

“But you assume she’s going to help us?” Scully was treading lightly.

 

“No it’s it’s not actually an assumption,” he revealed. “She is the one who called me about this case.”

 

“Oh so you two are chummy?” She really hated this feeling. If she could just get this out of her system she might not feel so territorial. Maybe she was the bad dog.

 

 

The poster on Karen’s office wall surprised Scully. He mentioned it once in passing during one of their recent exchanges but he didn’t anticipate she would order one for herself. He didn’t feel this way when the Lone Gunmen had things around their place that Mulder mentioned. Why did this feel different?

 

“Mulder?” Scully let out a breath. “She’s a friend of yours?”

 

“We met online,” he said with a nod.

 

“Online,” she repeated, unimpressed.

 

“Two professionals, exchanging information,” he told her in the same tone she used to describe her calls to Tim.

 

It drove him nuts that she didn’t call him Agent Watts or just Watts and she knew that. She used his first name so freely as though she murmured it in hushed tones in other situations. If he pulled his head out of his ass he might discover the only name that she uttered when she felt a release was Mulder’s.

 

This part of their relationship didn’t have to be so difficult but it was. If they could move beyond Diana, move beyond the secrets and he could actually talk to her. If he could stop acting like being under AD Kersh was a thing that only happened to him, if being humiliated by working in a bull pen after years of his own office. That happened to her too. If he could stop acting like it wasn’t just his name attached to the X-Files, if he could put her fucking name on the door and remind him, they were supposed to be partners, in it 50/50 and together.

 

If Mulder could just understand her interest in Tim was purely intellectual and the conversations lightened her spirit. He didn’t make her feel like a lab specimen, he didn’t push her for “freaky insights” on Spooky Mulder and he just asked about her opinions.

 

Later, in the car, Scully had to remind Mulder of a constant argument between them. He shouldn’t underestimate a woman - not just Karen but Diana or anyone he chose to trust immediately without question. He seemed to have such faith in the fairer sex when he’d been burned so many times.

 

“They could be tricksters too,” she said as though he wasn't aware how often he was lied to and betrayed. 

What was even worse to a degree was that Scully was right about Karen, the coincidence of the case was exactly what she wanted to get Mulder out there. Karen blatantly pointed out she hadn’t anticipated Mulder working along side a woman who looked like her though, with Scully’s feminine wiles.

 

“You watch, but you don’t see,” Karen said to her.

 

She saw more than Karen realized but maybe she wasn’t ready to accept it. She wasn’t ready to move on from what had happened. She was still holding on to too much.

 

It might take a miracle but at least Scully believed in those.


End file.
